


Didn't Even See It Coming

by why_didnt_i_get_any_soup



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Multi, Soulmates, Threesome, Threesome - F/F/M, Triad Verse, Triad Verse Big Bang 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-20 21:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16145639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/why_didnt_i_get_any_soup/pseuds/why_didnt_i_get_any_soup
Summary: Somewhere around Attempt #657, Michael decides that everyone in The Good Place has two soulmates. And everyone has to discover theirs. It’s more fun that way.Written for the Triad Verse Big Bang 2018.





	Didn't Even See It Coming

**Author's Note:**

> Edited by the wonderful [BuckinghamAlice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckinghamAlice). Thanks love!!! Excellent art by [karin848](http://karin848.tumblr.com) on tumblr! Please give her some love! Thanks so much for doing art for me!

Eleanor slowly opened her eyes and a sense of calm washed over her. She was sitting on a comfortable couch and, in large green letters on the wall in front of her, the words “Welcome! Everything is fine.” were painted. She smiled, tranquil. Then, to her left, a door opened and a handsome older man with a shock of neat white hair appeared.

“Eleanor?” He asked. “Come on in.”

She was dead, he explained. She couldn’t believe it. The only thing she could think about was whether or not she was in hell. She couldn’t remember her death but she could remember he life and it….wasn’t the very best out there. So, she just outright asked about being in hell, with dumb hand gestures and everything.

“Don’t worry, Eleanor. You’re in The Good Place.” Michael, the white haired man, explained.

She sighed with relief.

“Come on. Let me show you the neighborhood,” he smiled and stood, gesturing to the door.

They emerged into a beautifully quaint neighborhood with light stone buildings and cobbles on the walk ways. Lots of frozen yogurt.

“So, in The Good Place, we have distinct neighborhoods that are all carefully crafted with 321 people who are perfectly selected to blend together in a blissful harmonic balance.”

“It’s so beautiful here,” Eleanor said, a sense of wonder pressing out from her chest.

“All neighborhoods are different, chosen specifically for the people in them. This one is warm because the people who are here prefer warm weather,” Michael explained.

“There sure is a lot of frozen yogurt here,” Eleanor blurted.

“Haha,” Michael said a little sheepish, “that’s one thing that is consistent in all neighborhoods. People love frozen yogurt” He shrugged.

“Nice,” Eleanor nodded as they arrived in the middle of the neighborhood.

There was a large grassy area with chairs set up.

“Everyone,” Michael’s voice was booming, louder than Eleanor had heard before, “take a seat! The orientation film is about to begin!”

Eleanor walked over and took a seat in the front, one of the few left. A giant screen simply appeared in front of them almost like a drive-in theater. Then, just as Michael had said, a film welcoming people to The Good Place and how they were selected started. The more Eleanor watched, the more her stomach started to sink. He was talking about weighing good deeds versus bad deeds and that just didn’t add up to her, not with what she could remember of her own life. She couldn’t remember one thing that she could call an objectively good deed. But then, Michael was saying something else that caught her attention.

“There are two people who are your true soulmates. That’s right! Two! Soulmates are real. And two of the people in your neighborhood are your _actual_ soulmates. We’re not going to tell you who, because that’s half the fun! But when you find them, you’ll know. And you will spend eternity together. So, welcome to eternal happiness. Welcome to The Good Place.”

Now, that was interesting. But if she didn’t belong here, did she really have soulmates then? Or was she going to be stuck in some kind of weird limbo while in a perfect paradise for the rest of her afterlife? She started looking around, trying to catalogue faces, just to see if any of them even sparked her interest. It just looked like any other crowd. Then Michael found her again.

“Let me show you to your home,” he said, gesturing away from where they were standing.

“Okay.” Eleanor smiled, trying to quash down the feeling of not belonging as she followed him away from the center of the neighborhood.

“Most people don’t make it here,” Michael was explaining as they came up on a small, symmetrical house painted in primary colors. “But you, a lawyer who got innocent people off death row, you’re special, Eleanor.”

Eleanor’s stomach sank at that. She had definitely _not_ been a lawyer. Not even close. But that was the confirmation she needed that she wasn’t in the right place. Michael thought she was lawyer.

They stopped in front of the small house that was neighbored to the left by an impossibly huge white mansion with synchronized fountains and topiaries in front.

“Welcome to your new home,” Michael said triumphantly. “In The Good Place, everyone gets to live in a home that perfectly matches his or her true essence.”

“That’s why mine is so small, when it could be large like that one,” she said, gesturing toward the mansion.

“Precisely.” Michael beamed, opening the front door.

“As you can see,” Michael continued, “the inside is decorated in the Icelandic primitive style, just like you like it. Oh! And of course, we know you love clowns, so…” he spun to reveal a corner decorated in hideous clown paintings.

_Horrible_ , Eleanor thought. _This is definitely not for me_.

“Oh! And one more thing!” Michael smiled and started waving his hands around so that another screen showed up. “Let me show you the video system. It lets you review everything that happened in your life. From your point of view, of course. Let’s try this one.” he tapped on one of the bubbles that had popped up in a web that branched out from a bubble labeled “Eleanor.” “This is a memory from your human rights mission to Ukraine!”

_Oh no, oh no no no_. Eleanor was thinking, panicking. This was the afterlife. There was nothing she could do, she didn’t think.

“I’ll leave you to it.” Michael smiled and swept out of the house. “I’ve got other residents to show around!”

Then Eleanor was alone in that ugly, angular, clown-infested house. _Icelandic primitive style! Who even actually likes that? Ugh, this is bull-shirt_.

She froze. Why had her mind just provided the word _shirt_ instead of _shirt?_

“Shirt!” she said out loud. “What the fork?”

She started panicking. Why couldn’t he say any swears? She huffed out a sigh of frustration and flopped on the couch, not the most comfortable in the world, and tucked her feet up under her.

“Guess I’ll just sit here and watch some other bench’s memories.” She groaned when the word “bench” came out of her mouth.

And she sure did feel foolish waving her arms around and not touching anything to change the memories on the screen. It worked, but it was weird. Another memory popped up, this one of the Other Eleanor defending a man being accused of murder at his retrial. The memory was of the closing statements and everyone in the room was crying, including the man on trial. Eleanor never cried in life but she felt her eyes start to prickle a little. _Don’t like that_ , she thought and tried to back out of the memory.

She slid into another one. This was of the Other Eleanor visiting a death row inmate the day before his execution. The man was sobbing, looking bedraggled and thin and the screen was a little blurry, presumably from Other Eleanor crying too. The man was saying how he didn’t do it, how he was scared, and how he missed his family.

Eleanor didn’t know much about this other woman, but she assumed that woman had done everything in her power to prevent this outcome. She backed out of that memory too and couldn’t help but think of the time one of her boyfriends told her people were boycotting a particular coffee shop because the owner had sexually assaulted an undercover journalist. All Eleanor had done was gulp down the coffee and yell about how he wasn’t better than her. She never would have even thought that someone sentenced to death could be anything other than guilty. She didn’t think too hard about a lot of things in life.

So, she tried a memory, looked for anything other than major crying fests. Instead, she stumbled upon a memory of Other Eleanor being proposed to by her two boyfriends, a big elaborate affair with a band and mood lighting and the whole restaurant watching. The two men were crying and Other Eleanor was crying and Eleanor started to feel her eyes prickle again. She tried to tell herself it was just because she couldn’t see other people crying without crying herself. Really, she had died alone, bitter and single because of how miserable of a person she had been. She let herself cry, hot irritating tears rolling down her face. She had to get out of this ugly house with its ugly clowns and...get some froyo or something.

To get there, she had to pass the gardens, go over the zen garden bridge, past some modest-looking townhomes, and finally she was in the center of the neighborhood, in that little shopping center. She passed over the cobblestones and walked into the first frozen yogurt shop she could find. She remembered liking froyo in life, but she never seemed to get it. Why was that? As she stepped into this shop, she looked around at all the choices, all the yogurt flavors and all the toppings. It was more than she had ever seen in life. It was all the choices that had turned her away, she realized. And this time it was even worse because they weren’t flavors like strawberry or birthday cake but things like “folded laundry” and “full cellphone battery,” which upon tasting gave the taster the satisfied feeling that one got from having a fully charged cellphone. And how did you add toppings to that? The toppings were things like “sea breeze” and “pine forest” which just gave the vague feeling of smelling a nice candle. It was too many options, too many things she liked but wasn’t sure if they’d taste good together because they weren’t...real flavors, just feelings and concepts. And she remembered, as she looked around the shop, that it always seemed like the spaces were too small, she was always sort of in someone else’s way when trying to decide on what to put on her yogurt.

Finally, she decided on something and she went up to pay before she remembered that it was the afterlife and there was no money. No purse, no phone. She found herself instinctually reaching for one of these items and finding them conspicuously absent. So, feeling like an idiot who tried to pay in the afterlife, she took her cup to the sunny outside seating area, to a table that was empty and shaded by an umbrella. She settled in and was leaning back, ready to eat her froyo when a middle aged woman with red hair approached the table.

“Can I sit?” the woman asked.

If Eleanor had still been alive, she would have told the lady to fork off, but she knew she could get into some trouble if she said that here and now. Everyone would know she was an imposter. Instead of saying anything, she just nodded to the chair. The woman sat.

“How are you doing, dear?” the woman asked in that motherly tone.

_Oh great_ , Eleanor thought but refrained from rolling her eyes.

“I’m fine, thanks,” she said in her politest tone.

“You look as though you’ve been crying.”

“I, uh,” she was caught off guard and didn’t have a good excuse for why she might look that way.

“Why are you crying here, of all places? This is paradise.” The woman had obviously been a Christian with that kind of language. “Are you missing your family?”

Eleanor was already lying by simply being there, so she doubled down. “Yeah,” she sniffed and nodded, looking down into her froyo forlornly.

“Don’t worry. We’re your family now,” the woman said and reached over to pat Eleanor on the arm.

She hated hearing that from a complete stranger but she grinned through it. _What if this woman is my soulmate?_ she thought suddenly. _Or Other Eleanor’s soulmate? Does it matter if she is? Will this Eleanor’s presence here deprive two other people of soulmates?_

She shook her head but then realized it would look rude so she smiled and thanked the woman. “Do you miss your family?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” the woman replied, “all the time. But I know I’m in the right place, even if it’s without them.”

Eleanor frowned. She wasn’t sure that was actually comforting. And why could you remember your family and your life in the afterlife anyway? Wouldn’t people just get...sad?

“Where are my manners!” the woman suddenly exclaimed, “I’m Annie.” She stuck her hand out to shake and Eleanor took it.

“Eleanor,” she explained, pulling her hand back and shoving more frozen yogurt in her mouth.

Surprisingly, instead of staying to chat, the woman got up and walked away, down the cobbled street. Well, that was weird, Eleanor thought but she didn’t find she missed her. Instead, she finished her dessert and headed back to her weird, tiny house.

Inside, she turned the “tv” back on and found a weird infomercial about The Good Place. Michael welcomed the viewer to The Good Place, told them about amenities like the spa and the frozen yogurt, and introduced them to “Janet,” a “magical assistant” that can get the viewer whatever they want. Maybe she should test out this magical assistant.

“Janet?” Eleanor called out to the air, feeling a silly as she did it.

But it worked. A pretty brunette woman in a simple but professional blue skirt and vest combo showed up in her house, right in front of her. A little too close for comfort. Eleanor jumped.

“Hi there!” the woman said in a sweet, bubbly voice. “How can I help you?”

“I, uh,” Eleanor hadn’t thought about it much before she called for Janet. “I just saw about you on the...infomercial thingy.” She waved her hand over toward the screen that was hovering where a television would be if they were on earth.

“I see,” Janet said. “Is there anything you might need?” she suggested.

“Er,” Eleanor thought about it but nothing really came to mind, “what kind of things can you do?”

“Anything! Anything you need or want to know about.”

“Wait, so you can tell me information? Anything I want to know?”

“That is correct.”

“Like a walking database.”

“Yes.”

“Kevin Paltonic, lived in Avondale, Arizona in like 2002. Gay or not gay?”

“Not gay.” Janet answered matter-of-factly.

“Really?” Eleanor was a bit affronted. She’d always thought that was the reason he didn’t want to sleep with her. “I wasn’t that into him anyway.” She tried to shrug it off.

“Yes, you were,” Janet said in the same tone.

“Right, okay. Well, now that I know you can answer anything, I guess that’s it.”

Janet didn’t say goodbye before vanishing. It left a bit of a bad taste in Eleanor’s mouth.

Before Eleanor could climb up the ledge to try to get to her bed to take a nap in the absence of anything else to do in friggin’ _paradise_ , someone knocked on her door. Eleanor sighed and opened the door. There, standing in front of her was a gorgeous brown woman with perfect hair and deep dark eyes that Eleanor could have gotten lost in. But she lost sight of that entirely when the woman began to talk quickly with a British accent.

“Hello!” she said cheerily, “Can I just say I love this house? It’s so cute, so tiny! Like a little house for a family of mice or something. I just love it. So teensy and sweet. Just like you.”

Before Eleanor could stop her, the woman was leaning in and booping her nose while saying the word “boop.” Eleanor tried to keep what would have been a string of swears on Earth inside even when she felt her temper boil. Instead, she played along.

“You boop’d me!” Eleanor said, sounding almost happy about it.

“I did!” the woman smiled and laughed like they were in on some joke together. Eleanor wanted her to leave.

“How fun,” Eleanor said, scrunching her face up to cover how bothered she truly was.

“I’m Tahani,” the woman said, sticking a hand out to shake.

Eleanor had met a lot of people in a short amount of time. When she was alive, she never made an effort to remember a single person’s name. She wasn’t about to start now.

“I live next door and I’ve decided to have a little welcome party tonight. I’ve invited the entire neighborhood.”

“All 321 of them?” Eleanor asked, a little taken aback at the thought. Then, she remembered how ostentatiously large the house next door was.

“Oh yes! I just simply adore entertaining! I did it all the time when I was alive. Why stop now?”

Eleanor nodded at that but didn’t comment.

“So I’ll see you tonight?”

“Sure,” Eleanor said, trying not to commit.

She wondered if she’d be too conspicious if she didn’t go to the party, if it would single her out as not belonging if she didn’t want to go to a nice party hosted by her beautiful, nice neighbor. Sighing, she resigned herself to the idea that she needed to show up. So, she had to procure a formal dress for the occasion, given the fanciness of the host’s house. She called Janet back.

 

…

 

She didn’t love having to walk to the party; just getting across one half of the house was like walking across an entire football field. Teleportation would be real nice here in the afterlife if they could make that work somehow. She supposed she could have asked Janet, but it hadn’t even crossed her mind until she was about halfway there and her feet already started to hurt from the high heels.

When she knocked, Tahani opened the door in a fetching yellow evening dress. The thought of Tahani being one of the Other Eleanor’s soulmates crossed her mind briefly as she crossed over the threshold into the large atrium.

“My whole house could fit in just this part of the house,” she muttered to herself.

“What was that?” Tahani asked, leaning closer to try and hear.

“Oh, nothing,” Eleanor tried to brush it off.

“Right, well, there are all sorts of refreshments over there,” Tahani gestured toward a large hall beyond the atrium, “and plenty of beverages if you’re so inclined.”

_Alcohol!_ Eleanor’s mind yelled, _yes please!_

“And please, don’t forget to mingle!” Tahani called after her as she rushed toward a table she saw lined with champagne glasses.

“I’m about to get _wasted_ ,” she said to herself before throwing back the entire glass and grabbing another glass to take on the go while she “mingled.” She was single, after all.

The first person she encountered in the large room was a black man named Darius with a blue scarf and gray sweater.

“What’s your story?” she asked him.

“Well!” he clapped his hands together excitedly, “I spent about the first half my life in North Korea fighting for women’s rights, helping get information to people trying to get out. Then, I spent the other half in Saudi Arabia fighting for gay rights. In fact, that’s how I died.”

“Cool,” Eleanor smiled through her teeth before taking a big gulp of her champagne. “Bye!”

She finished her glass and grabbed another, scoping the room out for someone, the opposite of the person she had just talked to. With fresh alcohol in hand, she approached a beautiful middle aged woman with medium brown hair in a cranberry dress. Immediately, after Eleanor introduced herself, the woman started into a story about trying to remove landmines from the Vietnam war that they knew were located near an orphanage. The United Nations told them there was no evidence that there were any landmines in the area.

“So we said, ‘if the UN won't remove them, we will.’ And we wound up removing over a thousand unexploded landmines from the area!”

“Oh fantastic,” she smiled forcefully, and knocked back the rest of her drink before walking away.

Next, she approached a Sikh man with a well-trimmed beard, blue head wrap, and a gray button up shirt. She asked him what his story was and he launched into a story about a dying man he met on a bus.

“Then he said ‘You can’t give me both your kidneys, you’ll die.’ And I said, ‘But you will live and you seem nice.’”

_Oh, forget it!_ Eleanor thought, smiling tightly, _I’m heading to the bar_. Outwardly, though, she politely excused herself. She was impressed with how nice she had been, considering the way she would have handled it when she was alive.

After that, the night started to blur. Eleanor got...incredibly drunk. She started just talking to anyone she found attractive and sneaking shrimp into her bra for later. _Later Eleanor is going to thank me_ , she was thinking as she did it, checking furtively to make sure no one saw her do it. Though, truthfully she was too drunk to know for sure.

At some point, she latched on to a man named Chidi who said he was raised in Senegal. He was a handsome, bespectacled man who talked about morality and ethics and Eleanor couldn’t really explain how she came to find him so fascinating, but she did and told him to keep “talking smart” to her. He laughed nervously.

“Your English is, like, really good,” she said through the haze of alcohol, so relieved she was actually able to get drunk.

“I’m, uh, actually speaking French right now,” Chidi admitted, “it’s just this place, it translates what we say into a language the other person can understand.”

“Whaaaaaaaaaat?” Eleanor asked, seriously impressed. “That is so cool.”

“It is pretty neat,” Chidi agreed, laughing a little.

“Chidi,” Eleanor looked him right in the eyes, “I need to go home. Will you take me home?”

“Didn’t you say you live next door?” he asked, puzzled.

“Yes, but I need to be escorted,” she said, hoping he would get the idea that she was trying to fork.

“Okay,” he agreed, and she hoped that meant he was into it.

They started to leave, heading out into the temperate night.

“I’m surprised that night happens here,” Eleanor remarked, looking up and seeing stars. “There are even stars!” she said in awe, leaning into Chidi. “I can’t believe it.”

“I guess they wanted to make it as authentic to Earth as possible.” Chidi guessed, not pulling away from her.

But Eleanor had to go and ruin the mood. “That Tahani though. What a condescending bench, am I right?”

“Uh…”

“I mean, she’s a big, beautiful, utterly perfect cartoon giraffe with a British accent. Like, why does she still have that accent anyway? No one else here has one! Especially since everything is getting translated! So, she must be choosing to have it!” Eleanor came to the conclusion like she had discovered a massive conspiracy.

“I think she’s a nice woman,” Chidi stood up for Tahani.

“Oh, yeah? You think she’s nice? Do you think she’s pretty? Do you want to marry her?” Eleanor started taunting, not even really sure why she would suddenly feel tightness in her stomach like that.

“Marry her? What? I don’t know anyone here yet. Of course, I’m looking out for my soulmates, but I think it may take some time for that to happen.”

Eleanor laughed. She was messing up the math of the whole operation. By being there, two people were deprived of a soulmate. _Could Chidi be one of them?_

“Why are you laughing?” Chidi demanded.

“You’re such a nerd,” she answered as they got to her front door.

Chidi stopped there.

“Aren’t you going to come in?” she asked, already trying to pull him inside.

“I…” he was protesting, but Eleanor’s tugging won him over and he stumbled in after her.

“Hello, creepy house that I hate!” she blurted out as the lights came up and the clown paintings came into view.

“You don’t like your house?” Chidi sounded confused.

“I hate clowns!” Eleanor shouted, making her way over toward the bed, forgetting the weird ledge that was too high to step up onto.

“But they made our houses specifically for us. How could you hate it?” He moved toward her.

Eleanor just shrugged and turned back toward him. “Just,” she reached up and grabbed his hands, putting them over her breasts covered by her black dress. They squished.

Chidi’s eyes were wide. “What…” he trailed off.

“The forking shrimp!” Eleanor slapped her forehead and then started pulling the shrimp out from her bra where she’d been storing them.

“Did you steal shrimp from the party?” he looked bewildered.

“No,” Eleanor said. “Maybe...yes! So what? It’s heaven, right? Are they really gonna run out of shellfish?”

“That’s an excellent question,” he seemed to be giving it serious consideration.

“That’s not the point!” Eleanor interjected before he could lose track. “The point is, you’re supposed to be touching my boobs!”

“Eleanor,” his voice was firm, “I’m not doing that.”

“Chidi!” she whined. “Why not?’

“I don’t even know you,” he reasoned.

“What better way to get to know me!” she protested but started crawling on the ledge, trying to get to the bed. “Why aren’t there stairs?”

Chidi, not drunk at all, saw how much she was struggling and easily mounted the ledge, heading toward the wardrobe instead of going near her bed where she had managed to crawl.

“I found some pajamas,” he told her, but she was already getting under the covers in her fancy dress, feeling like she was about to pass out. He set the pajamas on the nightstand.

With her eyes closed, her chest rumbling with the words like she wasn’t the one deciding to say them, she said “Chidi, I’m sorry that you had to deal with this,” and couldn’t remember anything after that.

 

…

 

Eleanor was surprised to find a glass of water on the nightstand next to the still-folded pajamas. In the past, she would have found that glass of water as a lifeline in the morning as she nearly drowned in her hungover misery, but now she found that she wasn’t hungover at all.

“I’m not hungover!” she announced loudly to the house at large.

But, as soon as she said it, she saw movement from the couch. Looking over, she found Chidi—wide-eyed—looking around dazedly. “Eleanor?” he croaked.

“Chidi?” she said, confused. “What are you doing here?”

“I think it’s an old habit from being alive,” he scratched the back of his head as he sat up. “I’ve had many a friend need someone to stay with them when they got that drunk. Usually, they’d wake up after a few hours of sleep and need to puke their guts out. It helped having someone there to rub their back and make them drink water.”

“I’m not hungover at all! No need to throw up either,” she smiled, triumphantly and got out of the bed, still in the party dress.

Normally, after a night of drinking (and a morning of puking), she would be pretty hungry, ready to tear into some greasy breakfast food.

“I’m not hungry either. I mean, I think I have the capacity to eat but I don’t think anyone is...hungry here?” it turned into a question at the end.

“Me neither,” Chidi shrugged. “I could eat, though, I guess.”

“Hey, Chidi?” Eleanor sat on the edge of the bed, facing him sitting on her couch.

“Yeah?”

“I really am sorry you had to deal with me last night. That was...incredibly undignified,” she admitted, looking down at her bare feet on the hardwood.

“It’s okay.”

“It really isn’t,” Eleanor insisted, thinking about what to say next. Something in her trusted Chidi. “Do you think anyone actually cared that I’m dead? Maybe someone does. I don’t know. I was an only child and my parents got divorced when I was really young. They’re both dead too, and they were pretty crummy so they’re probably,” she gestured down to signify the bad place, “In The Bad Place. Maybe they’re torturing each other. It actually would work.”

Chidi shrugged noncommittally.

“I bet a lot of people cared that you died. ‘Cause you’re a nice person, Chidi… Anaconda?”

“It’s Anagonye.”

“Aganocomonga,” Eleanor tried, the name not registering in her brain.

“Anagonye,” Chidi said again.

“Ags...wait, say it again?”

“Ana-gon-ye.” he tried pronouncing it phonetically.

“You just changed it!” Eleanor accused.

“Nope, I didn’t. It’s my name.”

“Argugande? Ariana Grande. That’s a person! I win!”

“It...is a person,” he said almost hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure if it was a person or not.

“Well, Chidi, shall we go get some breakfast?” she suggested.

“I would love that, actually,” he smiled.

“Let me just get dressed and then we’ll go.”

When she was wearing proper clothes, they left the house and started walking toward the center of the neighborhood to find a breakfast place. As they came closer, they noticed a large portion of the neighborhood standing around. Eleanor started pushing through the crowd and Chidi followed. Finally, they found Tahani.

“What’s going on?” Eleanor asked.

“Well,” she started, looking incredibly frazzled, “Michael says not to worry but it seems the whole neighborhood _is_ worrying!” Tahani replied with a non-answer.

“Worrying about what?” Eleanor prodded.

“Well, there’s a hole.”

“A hole?” Eleanor clarified, thinking it sounded quite stupid.

“Yes, a hole. Right at the exact center of the neighborhood. It’s not very wide, but we can’t see how deep it is.”

“I’ve got to see this,” Eleanor said, pushing forward again, cutting through the gathered crowd.

Sure enough, there was a hole in the ground, no bigger than the size of an apple.

“Not much to look at,” Eleanor turned to Chidi to say.

He looked worried.

“Let’s go grab breakfast,” she reminded him, and that seemed to snap him out of his worry.

“Right. Let’s go.”

 

…

 

They were seated at a table by the window. The restaurant was run by Janet, or multiple Janets. Eleanor wasn’t exactly sure. But they put in their orders and waited around for it to be served, which was almost immediately since it was the afterlife and the food didn’t really have to be cooked.

“Do you think this is more like a simulation of real life?” Chidi asked, looked down at the food that had come out so quickly.

Eleanor wasn’t entirely sure what he meant. “I don’t know,” she said, stuffing bacon into her mouth. “This bacon tastes pretty real to me.”

“Right, but I mean, is the taste of the bacon simulated? Do we just think we’re eating? It’s not as if we need to sustain our bodies this way. So, is it just psychosomatic because we’ve learned to associate food with human bonding and interaction?”

“Dude,” Eleanor gave him a weird look and eyed the food Chidi had ordered as “breakfast” that looked more like split pea soup than something that people should eat as the most important meal of the day, “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Just eat your weird slop and your baguette.”

“It’s not slop,” Chidi looked offended. “It’s lakh. Porridge. It’s quite good.”

“Hmm,” Eleanor eyed it but wasn’t very convinced. “Okay.” She shrugged.

After some silence, Eleanor finally finished some chewing and spoke up. “Why do you think there’s that hole out there? That’s kind of weird for heaven or whatever, right?”

“It does seem strange.” Chidi considered it, looking out the window at the crowd still around it.

“Why are they still out there anyway? It’s not like anything is happening. It’s not even a fight or something,” Eleanor said, slurping her coffee.

“Would you prefer it be a fight?” Chidi looked vaguely upset at the notion.

“It would be more interesting than a stupid hole.” She shrugged.

“Huh. You’re not what I would expect from someone with your credentials.”

“My credentials?” Eleanor felt her stomach drop.

She knew she had talked to Chidi at the party the night before, but she truly didn’t remember much of any of the conversation, so she had no idea what she may or may not have told him.

“A death row lawyer,” he supplied like it was obvious.

“Oh, right. Yeah.”

“For one, you don’t talk like a lawyer.”

Eleanor laughed nervously, the overwhelming urge to flee hitting her. And it’s not like the urge to flee ever stopped her in life, even if there was still an unpaid bill at a restaurant. What was really stopping her now since she was in the afterlife and there were no bills?

“I just remembered...something,” she said, standing from the table and briskly walking out of the restaurant before breaking into a jog on her way back to her house.

Before she could get too far, as she was passing an alley, a pair of hands reached out and grabbed her. She was about to go into self-defense mode when she saw the tell-tale red and gold robes of the Tibetan monk she had been eyeballing because of how cute he was. She couldn’t remember his name though.

“Oh, hey...you,” she said, smiling at his handsome face.

“Eleanor,” he whispered.

“What the fork? I thought you’d taken a vow of silence or something!” Eleanor pulled away, staring at him.

He just started violently shaking his head. “Nope, I’m not a monk at all.”

“You’re not?”

“Nope,” he said kind of dopily, “I’m a guy from Jacksonville, Florida.”

“No way.” She kept staring. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly.” He raised his chin solemnly.

“So, what’s your real name then?” she demanded.

“Jason Mendoza. You know, I’m actually Filipino, not Tibetan. It’s kind of racist that people just think it’s all interchangeable.”

Eleanor nodded in agreement. “So, no offense, Jason. But, uh, since ‘you’re a guy from Jacksonville,’ are you really supposed to be here?”

“Nope,” he said again, that same goofy look on his face, “not anymore than you are.”

“Wait, how do you know that?”

He gave her a weird look. “You told me at the party last night. You said ‘since you’ve taken a vow of silence, you can’t go blabbing my secrets so here’s a secret. I’m not supposed to be here!’ Then you walked away.”

Eleanor nodded. “That sounds right.”

“So, what do we do about it?” Jason asked, like Eleanor had anymore of an idea than he did.

“I’m still working on that now,” she admitted.

“Well, where are you going?” Jason asked, sounding more like a lost puppy.

“I, uh, I’m just trying to avoid Chidi right now, I guess. He’s kind of on to me and I’m not sure what to do.”

“The philosophy guy?”

“Yeah. How did you know that?”

Jason looked at her with an eyebrow raised. “When people think you don’t talk, they tell you anything. I did actually get pretty good at listening, but not talking was driving me _crazy_.”

“Well, now you can talk to me, I guess,” she said with a shrug. “I’m going back to my house. Coming with?”

“Sure.” Jason shrugged too and followed along behind her.

Just before her house, in the gardens nearby, they ran into Tahani.

“Oh hi, Eleanor! Jianyu! I didn’t know you two knew each other? Bonding, are we?” she sounded cheerful but something in her voice was tight. _Is she jealous?_ _That’s new_.

“Yeah, we were just going back to my place to, uh, watch some of my memories,” she came up with on the fly.

“Oh, that does sound marvelous. Could I join?”

_Shirt_ , Eleanor thought. She didn’t have any good reason why Tahani _couldn’t_ come. But, before Eleanor could think up another lie, Michael came rounding the corner.

“Hello, everyone,” he greeted, a little out of breath. “Tahani, could I speak to you?”

“Oh, why yes of course, Michael.” She smiled and followed him away, shooting one furtive glance over her shoulder as they went.

Eleanor slid her eyes over to Jason and could see the relief there in his face.

 

…

 

“So, like, what do we do?” Jason asked, sitting on Eleanor’s couch as Eleanor paced in front of him.

“I’ve got an idea, but I’m not sure if it will work or not.”

“Lay it on me,” Jason said with a grin.

Eleanor couldn’t help but laugh at how normal he was. It was, despite the situation, relaxing her.

“So, Chidi, right?”

“Uh huh.” Jason looked eager.

“So, he taught ethics when he was alive. Ethics is all about being a good person, right?”

“Uh…” Jason trailed off.

Eleanor pressed on, ignoring his seeming ignorance. “So, maybe, if he make him like and care about us enough, he could teach us ethics and stuff and make us good people. That way, we can stay here!”

“Hmm,” Jason considered. “Sure!”

Eleanor wasn’t convinced he knew what exactly she was proposing, but it didn’t matter.

“The hard part is getting him to like us. I think he’s probably okay with you, but I’ve been kind of an ash-hole since I got here.”

Jason nodded, not disagreeing.

“Hey!” Eleanor half-heartedly protested. “Fine. I just have to figure out how to make him like me. Then, we can do the Big Ask. But it means you’re gonna have to stay quiet, at least around town. You can always talk to me, though.”

“Okay. Can I tell you the story of my favorite food ever? It’s this jalapeño poppers at this wing place in Gainesville, Florida.”

Eleanor steeled herself to listen to Jason talk about food for however long his little heart desired. He was very cute though.

Time had stopped really meaning anything to Eleanor now that there was no urgency, nowhere to be, nothing in particular to do. So, she couldn’t be sure how long they’d been sitting there with Eleanor not saying a single thing and Jason still talking about his sixty person dance crew. She couldn’t believe how much this dude, who she initially thought was a silent monk, could talk. However, it could have been half an hour or...eternity’s equivalent of half an hour, when Michael came knocking frantically on Eleanor’s door.

“We’re having an emergency neighborhood meeting at Tahani’s house!” he called into the doorway once Eleanor had opened it, then ran off again.

“Oh-kay...I guess we’re going to Tahani’s.” Eleanor shrugged.

 

… 

 

When all 321 people in the neighborhood had crowded into the large hall of Tahani’s oh-so-humble abode, Michael modulated his voice so everyone could hear easily. Eleanor found Chidi and apologized for ditching earlier. She didn’t really have a good excuse and felt stupid not being able to provide one.

He nodded but she wasn’t sure if he had accepted her apology since he was mostly focusing on Michael’s speech instead.

“Now, I’m sure all of you have at least heard of, if not seen, the hole in the center of town. As of right now, it’s not very big, so that’s good. However, we’re not sure what’s causing it. Please, don’t panic,” he put up placating hands, “you see, I’m the architect of this neighborhood. I studied and studied and finally they gave me my own neighborhood to create. Just for you all. And every little detail is perfect, because every one of you deserves a perfect world because you’re all such good people. At least, I thought it was perfect. Perhaps I was wrong. Because it’s just the nature of these perfect systems: if one little thing —one little flaw— exists then things could fall apart. But we’ll be working around the clock to find that one little thing. I just wanted to get out in front of it before things got any more out of hand. If you have any questions, ask Janet. Thank you.”

“Do you think it’s really a big problem?” Eleanor turned to ask Chidi, a nervous pit in her stomach.

“It’s just a small hole, right?” Chidi’s voice sounded tight.

“Right.” She nodded. “Want to get drunk off red wine at my place?”

Chidi gave her an odd look. “Or, uh, do some other thing? Maybe also involving red wine?”

“Well, I have always wanted to read French poetry in a rowboat on a lake. Maybe a little red wine there couldn’t hurt.”

Eleanor wanted to grimace at “French poetry” but she kept a straight face, nodding. “You know where the lake is? We can ask Janet for a boat and a bottle.”

They started leaving Tahani’s house, walking out with the rest of the crowd when someone grabbed Eleanor by the elbow from behind. Since Jason had done that earlier, she was expecting to see his face. Instead, there was Tahani trying desperately to get their attention.

“Where are you two going? Can I come along?” she asked, quick and tense.

Eleanor was about to try to come up with an excuse when Chidi smiled and said, “sure!” _Dang you_ , Chidi! Eleanor thought, smiling through it at Tahani.

“We’re just going down to the lake,” Chidi explained, moving toward the exit with the flow of the crowd.

“Oh, I do love boating! I could really use a distraction right now. This hole situation has me incredibly stressed. ‘Hole,’ get it? Like h-o-l-e.”

_Of course she calls it boating_ , Eleanor thought. _And she has to go around making puns, too_.

“I think we could all use a little relaxation. It is the afterlife, after all,” Chidi said, agreeing with Tahani.

As they walked toward the lake, Chidi explained to Tahani how he wanted to read French poetry and drink red wine in a row boat, that it had been a fantasy of his that he’d never gotten to in life. That got Tahani talking, telling a story of similar circumstances when she was alive, and it got Chidi chatting and smiling. However, it caused a nervous pit to form in her stomach. What if Tahani and Chidi were one of each other’s soul mates? What if that meant Eleanor falling out of favor and then she’d never get to learn how to be good and the neighborhood would fall apart because she was imperfect and Jason was imperfect and it was destroying the balance? She tried not to panic, smiling and laughing along even if she didn’t exactly follow the conversation.

When they got to the water’s edge, Chidi called for Janet. The immaculately dressed and groomed woman (or...what looked like a woman) appeared, permanent smile fixed to her smooth face. He asked for a rowboat, a book of Baudelaire, and a bottle of wine with three glasses. Immediately the items appeared, Janet handing over a basket with the wine bottle and glasses in it. Then, Janet asked if there was anything else they needed.

“That’s all for now. Thank you, Janet,” Chidi said, placing the book and basket into the center of the boat.

“Uh,” Chidi looked from Eleanor to Tahani, “what do we do now?”

Tahani laughed and took her shoes off, tossing them in the boat. “Hike up your pant legs so you can wade the boat out whilst Eleanor and myself are seated in the boat. Then, you hop in from the side.”

“Oh,” he said, “this sounds harder than I expected.” Chidi pulled a face, and Eleanor had been around him enough now to know that he was getting a stomach ache. The poor bastard.

“Sounds fun to me,” Eleanor said, watching Tahani—somehow still gracefully—climb into the boat and then following suit.

The two women situated themselves inside and turned to look at Chidi expectantly. Chidi, for his part, looked completely ruffled, the wind gone from his sails.

“What do I do now?” he asked helplessly.

“Push the boat out away from shore a little, get it loose. Then, you hop in from the side.”

“Uh, okay…” he sounded incredibly unsure, but he pushed the boat out into the clear water.

Eleanor liked the feeling of drifting a little but was immediately unsettled when Chidi tried to prevent it from going out too far so he could get in. He was already up to almost his knees and his usually nicely pressed slacks were soaked. He hadn’t hiked them up at all. There he was, standing in the water, and the boat rim was almost to his shoulder.

“How am I supposed to get in?” He said, nearly in a whine.

Eleanor tried not to laugh but had to hide her face because she couldn’t quite keep it in.

“Grab hold of the edge whilst Eleanor and myself lean the other way. Then, you hoist yourself in,” Tahani called, rather like a cheerleader.

“My upper arm strength is...uh, lacking,” Chidi muttered mostly to himself but both women heard him anyway.

“You can do it!” Tahani called again, leaning toward the opposite side, bracing for Chidi to climb in.

Finally, Chidi mustered up all he could to try and clamber into the boat. It wasn’t elegant and it wasn’t graceful; in fact, that was not a small amount of water splashed in as he finally got both legs over the side and he was planted firmly in the middle.

“I’m not sure I like boating, actually,” he said, water dripping from his head and into his eyes.

He wiped away the water and reached for the poetry book, finding it to be soggy but not soaked. “Still readable,” he called.

“Great,” Eleanor smiled but she didn’t really mean it. She never liked poetry, found it boring.

“ _My love, do you recall the object which we saw, that fair, sweet, summer morn!_ ” He began to read and Tahani sat rapt, while Eleanor tried her hardest to care.

Before she knew it, Eleanor was woken up by the boat rocking. Chidi had made the mistake of trying to stand up in the boat, and Eleanor hadn’t even realized she’d fallen asleep sitting up.

“Have you never once been on a boat!” Tahani screeched, hands gripping the boat edges tightly, trying to prevent it from capsizing.

“No!” Chidi called back, panicking. “I clearly had a very idealized notion of what this would be like!” He was crouching low, the boat wobbling.

“Just sit down!” Tahani told him.

So, he did. Right down on the floor of the boat, instead of a seat.

“I think maybe we should go back to shore?” Eleanor suggested, trying not to sound like she’d just been asleep, despite the fact that she absolutely had been.

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Tahani agreed, picking up the oars and trying to row the boat back whence they came.

Chidi had had the other seat with oars but was now sitting on the bottom of the boat, the small amount of water that had gotten in soaking his pants.

“This is...just really not what I imagined,” he admitted, putting his head between his knees and trying not to hyperventilate.

“I’ll row, if you want to stay down there,” Eleanor offered, starting to move toward that seat.

The boat rocked and Chidi’s head shot up. “No!” he shouted. “Don’t move. It’s going to make it worse.”

“Buddy,” Eleanor said, not able to help herself, “you really didn’t think this plan through, did you?”

“No, no I did not,” he admitted back into his knees, voice muffled.

“Tahani, any chance you can get us back to shore by yourself?” Eleanor pleaded.

“The three of us are quite heavy,” Tahani admitted, “I’d need some help if we’re to make any progress.”

“Fork,” Eleanor muttered, watching Chidi continue to hyperventilate. _We’re gonna be here awhile_ , she thought.

They sat in silence for who knew how long, just watching Chidi and waiting.

“It sure is lovely out here,” Tahani said, clearly resorting back to the tactics of party small talk to fill in the gaps of not knowing someone very well.

“It’s definitely different than Arizona,” Eleanor said without thinking.

“Did you spend a lot of time in Arizona?” Tahani looked a little puzzled.

“I, uh,” Eleanor stopped, unsure how much of her not real story Tahani actually knew, what she could reveal without tipping Chidi off to her fakeness and not belonging in The Good Place. “I was born there. Lived a lot of my life there.”

“I see,” Tahani said. “This place is not much like the American southwest at all,” she conceded.

“You’re right about that.”

“I have to admit, this is not how I pictured the afterlife at all. Not how I thought it would look and certainly not how I thought I’d be spending my time,” Tahani said, sounding...wistful, maybe. “I rather imagined it would be something like _The Five People You Meet In Heaven_.”

“Do you think there’s a possibility that somehow the three of us had an impact on each other’s lives when we were living and we didn’t even know it?” Chidi piped up, showing that he’d been listening all along, his voice still moved in his pants fabric.

“I guess it’s possible.” Eleanor tried her hardest to think about moments in her life where she could have run into people from other countries. She’d lived and died in Arizona, never done any traveling. Unless they both had come to Arizona, it was highly unlikely that was the case. “Did either of you ever go to Arizona?”

“No, I never did. I didn’t spend much time in the States,” Tahani admitted.

“I gave a talk at ASU one time in 2012. Any chance you went to it?” Chidi asked Eleanor.

“None,” she admitted.

“Humph,” Chidi said, turning his head to the side to gaze out at the water. He seemed to be feeling a little bit better.

Eleanor couldn’t help but snort a laugh at his reaction.

“Do you think there’s something that’s compelling us three together?” Tahani asked.

Eleanor scrunched her eyebrows up, surprised at the question. She didn’t think anything was compelling them together at all, except maybe Eleanor’s desire to be good and worthy of The Good Place and maybe Tahani’s desire to be liked by everyone at all times.

“Maybe...” Chidi started to say but seemed to hesitate, “never mind.”

“No. What?” Tahani pressed.

Chidi was silent for several seconds. “I mean, maybe we’re...soulmates?”

Eleanor’s stomach dropped at that. She knew good and well that she was no one’s soulmate and that if the other two believed that, then they were perceiving something that wasn’t there just because they wanted desperately to find their soulmates.

“It’s certainly possible!” Tahani agreed, smiling brightly.

It was so cute and charming and Eleanor almost believed maybe they were soulmates for half a second before reality came crashing down.

“Maybe,” Eleanor said quietly. “Are we ready to start rowing back?”

Chidi nodded and slowly shifted back into his seat, grabbing the oars. With Tahani still holding hers, they began to slowly and carefully head back to shore. The tip of the boat ran into the sand, and Chidi shrieked a little, startled.

“It’s okay,” Tahani smiled reassuringly. “It’s supposed to do that.”

“Oh-kay…” Chidi stuttered, not budging from his seat even though Tahani and Eleanor were climbing out.

“You coming?” Eleanor peered at him.

“I can’t move,” he admitted.

“Well,” Eleanor rolled her eyes, moving toward him, “I think it’s safe to say that we should _not_ do this again.”

Tahani moved to his other side, making soothing noises at Chidi and placing a hand on his arm. His eyes closed at the contact and he took a deep breath. Eleanor followed Tahani’s lead and, at the contact, Chidi stood himself up, bracing when the boat wobbled a little and then got out of the boat, ungracefully stepping over the side.

“I think I would be good avoiding that for a while,” Chidi admitted, deflating a little when his feet hit solid ground.

“We still have a whole thing of wine. Want to come back to my place and drink it?” Eleanor asked, trying to hold back a yawn.

“That sounds lovely,” Tahani agreed with no hesitation.

With Tahani’s definitive answer, Chidi looked over to Eleanor, set his face, and firmly nodded. That was surprising to Eleanor given the severe waffling she’d seen from him previous. She had to admit, she didn’t know him that well still.

Since it was the afterlife, after all, they left the boat right where it sat and took the wine back to Eleanor’s house. Their path took them right through the center of town and found that people were still gathered around the hole there.

“Why are people still here?” Eleanor asked aloud. “It’s just a hole.” The question was addressed to her two companions a neighbor that was nearby overheard and answered her.

“It’s gotten bigger,” the bearded man told her, looking distraught.

“ _What?_ ” Eleanor’s stomach dropped and she shoved through the crowd to try to get to the center.

It seemed that the hole had, indeed, gotten larger. Now, it was about the size of a cantaloupe.

“Oh, fork,” Eleanor murmured.

Then, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to find Tahani directly behind her, peering over her shoulder to look at the hole.

“This is quite worrying,” Tahani said in the most Tahani fashion possible.

“Maybe we should get going,” Chidi said from her other side.

She was relieved that she wasn’t the only one who wanted to leave.

The three of them moved through the crowd and fell silent as they moved to Eleanor’s small house. A part of her got a little bitter when she looked over to Tahani’s mansion with its immaculate topiaries and synchronized water features in the distance. She almost wanted to ask why they were even going to her house when Tahani’s palace was right there, but she held her tongue.

They all threw themselves heavily on the couch.

“I didn’t realize how tired I am,” Tahani announced, putting her head back and closing her eyes.

Eleanor had to admit it was a nice sight to have Tahani’s smooth neck exposed like that. “Mhm,” she agreed, more in her throat than actual words. She rested her head back too.

“Shall we have some wine?” Chidi inquired.

“I think that’s a lovely idea,” Tahani said, sitting up and opening the basket with the wine and glasses.

As Eleanor watched her deftly open the bottle and pour out measured amounts of the dark liquid, she realized the kind of home training Tahani had had. She was smooth and sophisticated and nothing like Eleanor. There was no way they were a match. Not at all.

“Go ahead and have a sip,” Tahani urged, “the aromas are to die for. I bet this will be one of the best wines we’ve ever had.”

Eleanor reached for her glass and was about to knock it back without a care when Tahani cried out.

“Eleanor, no! Wait!”

“What?”

“We must first toast. Then, we must take delicate sips to get an idea of the flavor palette.”

“Oh, of course,” Eleanor said dumbly.

Tahani stuck out her glass for a toast, and Eleanor clinked theirs together.

“Chin chin,” Tahani said.

Eleanor said it back.

Then, Chidi stuck his out for the same toast and they clinked all together. It was a small gesture, but Eleanor could feel why Tahani had insisted on it.

“Now, we may drink and be merry.”

The wine was free flowing from there. When the bottle would hit empty, it would fill back up.

“Oh, fork,” Eleanor exclaimed the first time it happened. “That’s awesome! Thanks, Janet!” she called out to the air.

Tahani was the first to pass out, totally wine drunk. Eleanor and Chidi weren’t too far behind.

 

…

 

When Eleanor woke up, still totally amazed at the fact that she wasn’t hungover, Chidi was already awake. He was reading a book called _What We Owe to Each Other_ , fully engrossed.

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully, quietly, smiling down at Eleanor.

“Mm,” she hummed, “good morning. We keep winding up like this.” She laughed.

“It seems that way.” His eyes flicked over to Tahani who was still sleeping.

The graceful woman was in a perfectly crouched position, not even snoring. _How dare she_ , Eleanor thought not unkindly.

“How did you sleep?” she asked.

“Perfectly,” he responded, “Though, I had a dream you told me you weren’t supposed to be here and you’re the reason there’s a hole in the center of town.”

Eleanor felt her eyes go huge. _Oh fork_.

Chidi only needed one look at that expression. “That...wasn’t a dream, was it?” he put his book down on the coffee table.

Eleanor bit her lip, totally caught and unsure where to go from there. “Uh…”

“Oh my god,” Chidi groaned, throwing his head back on the couch. “Are you serious?”

“Can you promise me you’ll never betray me?” Eleanor blurted out, not sure what else she could say.

“Uh…”

“Please? Say ‘I promise to never betray you for any reason.’”

“Eleanor,” he started, his voice sounding pained, “my stomach hurts. Oh god.”

“Are you going to throw up?” Eleanor asked as a reflex, thinking he might have a hangover despite it being the afterlife.

“No, ugh, it just gets like this when I’m stressed. I shouldn’t even be able to have a stomach ache in The Good Place, right?”

He seemed to be more concerned about the ability to have a stomach ache than Eleanor’s plight.

“I guess they were going for realism.” Eleanor slumped over. “I guess you’re going to turn me in to Michael, huh?”

“What?” Chidi met her eyes. “I didn’t say that.”

“What?” Eleanor felt a sense of elation flutter through her. “Are you serious?”

“I care about you,” Chidi admitted to the ceiling, “for some reason. I don’t know why, but I do. You’ve endeared yourself to me somehow.”

“Oh,” she didn’t know what to say. “So, you won’t betray me?”

“No,” he assured, “but I do want to know how much of what you’ve told people is true. Were you a lawyer? Did you ever go to the Ukraine?”

Eleanor shook her head. “You can’t tell Tahani. But, I lived my whole life in Arizona, never left the state, much less the country. And, I wasn’t...the _best_ person ever.”

“How bad?”

She immediately thought of the “dress bitch” t-shirt market and tried to push it away. “Uh…”

“What was your job? What did you do?”

“I was...in…, uh, sales.”

“What kind of sales?” he demanded.

She explained what her job was, how the pills they sold were really just chalk.

“So your job was to defraud the sick and elderly?”

“Well, sort of. I was very good at it. Top salesperson five years in a row.”

“That’s worse, Eleanor. You get how that’s worse, right?”

“Yeah...saying it out loud, I hear it,” she admitted.

“I was a professor of ethics and moral philosophy,” he said, really not to Eleanor but to himself. “I can’t condone your behavior. I don’t know what to do. I don’t think there’s anything I _can_ do.”

“ _Unless_ ,” Eleanor started to test the waters, “Unless there is something you could do.”

“Like what?”

“You could teach me!”

“Teach you what?” he scrunched up his eyebrows.

“How to be good. So that I will actually belong in The Good Place. At least a little bit. Since that was your job. No one knows I’m a problem. But I think things started getting a little crazy, like that hole in the center of town, after I was an ash-hole to everyone at the party. But if you give me a chance, maybe I can earn my place here. Let me be your ethical guinea pig. Whaddaya say?”

Chidi sighed. “I’m in a perfect paradise and I have a stomach ache.”

“Is that a yes?”

He sighed again. “I guess it’s not a no?”

“Yay! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she hugged him. “There’s just one more thing.”

“Oh no. What is it?”

“Can you teach Jianyu too?”

“ _What?_ Why?” Chidi balked.

“He’s, uh, not really? Jianyu? He’s a guy named Jason.”

 

…

 

“So, your name is Jason Mendoza,” Chidi clarified, looking around the room with Jaguars and Ariana Grande posters around the Xbox setup, “and you’re from Jacksonville, Florida?”

Jason nodded his head vigorously. “Yeah!” he exclaimed, not looking away from the video game on the screen.

“And you want to learn how to be good too?”

“Mmm yup!” he still didn’t look up.

“Uh...okay. Well, first things first, might be a good idea to step away from the video games. They’re not bad but they’re a bit of...a waste of time.”

“Oh,” Jason seemed to deflate, pausing the game, “okay.”

“You know your immortal soul is on the line, right?” Chidi asked, clearly a little affronted at how disappointed Jason was acting.

“Yeah, yeah, my immoral soul and all that.” Jason nodded.

Chidi looked like he was about to argue the point but didn’t bother.

“When do we start?” Jason asked, instead.

“We can start right now,” Chidi suggested. “It’s not like we have anything else we need to do.”

“Do I have to stay wearing this?” Jason asked, gesturing to his crimson robes.

“I’m going to say yes, just in case we get visitors while we’re studying,” Chidi said, already starting to walk out of the room.

 

…

 

They were halfway through their first lesson, Jason and Eleanor on the couch with their paper for notes on their laps and Chidi with a sliding chalkboard to write down the lecture, when a knock came from the door. The three of them scrambled to hide the evidence.

“Coming!” Eleanor called, before finally reaching the door.

It was Tahani. She had a small potted tree in her hands. Before saying anything, she peered over Eleanor’s shoulder to see Jason—Jiyanu to her—and Chidi reading on Eleanor’s couch.

“Oh,” she said softly.

“What brings you here?” Chidi called, casually.

“Oh, you know, I was just in the neighborhood.” Despite Chidi asking the question, the answer was addressed to Eleanor. “Do you get it, Eleanor? You know, because we’re all in the same afterlife! We’re always in the neighborhood. Do you get it?” Tahani seemed full of nervous energy. Eleanor couldn’t imagine why.

“I do, and it’s delightful,” Eleanor responded instead.

“Anyway, this is for you.” Tahani handed the plant over.

Eleanor wasn’t sure what to make of it. _Why would Tahani give her a plant? Why not give anyone else a plant?_ Chidi wasn’t getting a plant. Or maybe he was later. Who knew?

“Just a housewarming plant. It’s a little reminder that if there’s ever anything that you need, I am right next door.”

“I could never forget.” Eleanor tried to put on a genuine smile. She didn’t mind so much that Tahani was next door, but the ostentatious house still rankled a bit. “But thank you.” She thought she meant it.

“So, the three of you are all hanging out?” Tahani asked, peering into the living room beyond once again.

“Yeah. It’s not big thing. Have a great day, Tahani!”

“Oh, all right,” Tahani said awkwardly. Reluctantly? Did she not want to leave? Maybe she was just feeling left out.

There wasn’t much Eleanor could realistically do about that without cluing Tahni in on their little secret. The fewer people that knew, the better. Ideally, the only three people that should know are the three of them.

When Tahani had gone, Eleanor turned back to Chidi. “What do I do with this?”

“Put it somewhere nice?” Chidi hazarded a guess.

“But why would she bring it in the first place?” Eleanor asked, putting the plant on the sideboard behind the couch.

“She likes you!” Jason exclaimed dopily, looking up from his book that Eleanor doubted he was actually reading.

“I mean, we had a good time yesterday. I know she likes me just fine.”

Jason shook his head vigorously. “No she _likes you_ -likes you.”

“What are we, in first grade?” Eleanor scoffed.

Chidi fixed her with an exasperated look, considering they had started their lesson with the Golden Rule.

“Right, sorry, Jason. Old habits. It’s just a silly suggestion.”

After another hour of studying, Eleanor didn’t feel like she was any closer to understanding morals or ethics or any of the stuff Chidi was trying to tell them about. Judging by the look on Chidi’s face, he wasn’t feeling too good about it either.

“I’m gonna go do some reading and maybe make some notes so we can focus on this a little more, and see if I can make it more comprehensible for you,” Chidi suddenly announced, flipping through one of the books he’d been using as a reference.

“That sounded condescending,” Eleanor admitted, “but I don’t know how to respond to it.”

Chidi was already on his way out the front, not even hearing her response.

“Fine, go,” she said.

“Does that mean class is over for today?” Jason asked, his priorities clearly straight.

“It might as well be,” Eleanor sighed.

After both Chidi and Jason were gone, Eleanor meandered over to Tahani’s house next door.

“Hello, Eleanor,” Tahani called warmly, throwing open her front doors when Eleanor knocked. “Didn’t expect to see you so soon. Do come on in, my dear.”

My dear? Eleanor balked at that, Jason’s childish phrase of “like-like” ringing in her head.

“Let’s have a seat in the parlour,” Tahani suggested, leading Eleanor into the room.

Eleanor followed her, watching as Tahani laid herself out on a sitting couch. Eleanor sat opposite, feeling very weird.

“The hole in the center of town, it’s so disconcerting,” Tahani said and Eleanor wasn’t sure if she was sincere or not.

To Eleanor, the hole was incredibly “disconcerting.” It was a physical symbol of the fact that she did not belong in The Good Place.

“What do you think is causing it?” Eleanor asked to try and throw off the scent.

“Oh, I’m sure I don’t know. But we _must_ keep our heads up. In fact, I was just about to go door-to-door to make sure that every single person in this _entire_ neighborhood is keeping calm and carrying on. ‘Cause I think. That helping others will make me feel like I truly belong here, you know?”

_Wait. Why is Tahani so worried about belonging here? That’s weird_. Eleanor keyed right in on that. She wanted to know Tahani’s Story and she wanted to know it stat.

“Here’s a brainstorm. Why don’t I go with you? I mean, I would love to do my part to help the neighborhood, not to mention get a little bonding time with you, lady.”

“Oh, hurrah!” Tahani sat up, elated, clapping frantically. “Such fun!”

Tahani had baked goods and fruits for all the people in the neighborhood. With Eleanor there, they were able to make the rounds in no time, looping back to pick up more when the basket went empty. As they crossed the zen garden bridge, Eleanor took her chance to ask her questions.

“So, tell me about yourself. I mean, I want to hear it all, girlfriend.” She hadn’t meant to say the word but when it slipped out, it sounded oddly...right. “The good, the bad, the really bad, the embarrassing, the humiliating, just...Let’s bond.” Her old ways were hard to shake, but Tahani didn’t even notice.

The tall, slender woman launched right into her exciting and exotic sounding life.

“Modeling? That’s a crazy life,” Eleanor said, picturing it.

“Well, I didn’t do it for long. Couture just doesn’t fit my body. I’m cursed with ample bosom.”

Eleanor had to agree, staring right at that bosom. “And yet you soldier on.”

“Oh!” Tahani exclaimed as if Eleanor hadn’t said a thing, “so, this is silly. My name, ‘Tahani’ means ‘congratulations’ in Arabic. And ‘al-Jamil’ means ‘beautiful,’ so my full name altogether means—”

“Congratulations, Beautiful.”

“Thanks, Eleanor. You big flirt.”

Why did Eleanor’s stomach roll at that? Was she flirting with Tahani?

“Eleanor,” Tahani said, suddenly much more somber, “I feel like I know you so well already and that I can trust you.”

“You can absolutely trust me,” Eleanor urged, not sure what was causing the fluttering in her stomach.

“Can I confess something?”

“Please,” Eleanor urged.

“I’m really worried that I haven’t found even one of my soulmates yet.”

“Oh?”

“I just...I don’t know if there’s something wrong with me…”

“Tahani, listen, you are an impressive, thoughtful, and special person. Not to mention...you have a rockin’ bod. Anyone who doesn’t see that is crazy. Not to mention you literally have eternity to find these people. I wouldn’t worry so much.”

“Thank you. I really needed to hear that. Come here!” Tahani pulled her into a tight hug.

“Ugh, of course your hugs are amazing,” Eleanor griped, not really upset.

“Yes, they are. If I do say so myself.” Tahani laughed, nearly back to her normal self.

“I must admit, I feel a very special way toward you Eleanor. I just wish they would tell us who our soulmates are and end our suffering.”

“But Michael said it’s more fun if we don’t know.”

Tahani shrugged. “I don't know. He said we would know, but this doesn’t feel any different than on Earth. It’s the same uncertainty, the same wondering if you’re good enough for someone.”

“Tahani, you’re more than good enough for someone. In fact, people would be lucky to have you.”

“You mean it?” Tahani asked, not a trace of fishing in her voice.

“Absolutely,” Eleanor assured.

“Do you think I’m good enough for you? Good enough for Chidi?”

Eleanor’s stomach dropped. She couldn’t go on with Tahani thinking Eleanor was such a good person, a lawyer, a humanitarian.

“I’m not good enough for you!” Eleanor exclaimed without thinking.

“Oh, nonsense!” Tahani started to protest but Eleanor cut her off.

“No, really. I was never a lawyer, I never went to the Ukraine. I lived and died in Arizona. I’m here by mistake.”

Tahani stared at her, dumbstruck. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m a fake. I’m a phony. I don’t belong here!”

Eleanor hadn’t meant to say it all but there it was. And she certainly wasn’t sure how Tahani would react to it, but deep belly laughs that were leaving Tahani gasping for air was not it.

“I’m so relieved!” Tahani said, slapping a hand on Eleanor’s shoulder.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t belong here either, Eleanor. My life wasn’t that glamorous. I mean, sure I was rich and I knew famous people but I lived my life in my sister’s shadow. I was a miserable person. I never did anything for myself, looking back on it. I’ve had entirely too much time for self-reflection since I got here.”

“You’re joking,” Eleanor deadpanned.

“Not even a little. And I had the sneaking suspicion that the hole in the middle of town was due to me. But, now I’m thinking it’s the both of us.”

“Well…”

“Yes?”

“It’s not just us. Jianyu, you know, the Buddhist monk?”

Tahani nodded.

“He’s actually Jason from Jacksonville.”

“No way,” Tahani breathed out.

“He’s been getting away with it because he’s just stayed silent. But he’s got a whole pad with Jacksonville Jaguars posters and an Xbox.”

“Eleanor,” a strange look crossed Tahani’s face, “something is rotten in Denver. Let’s get to town.”

 

…

 

Tahani’s suspicions were confirmed when they saw that the hole was now stretched to the side of a basketball. So, she called for a meeting in Eleanor’s house.

With the four of them there, crowded in her living room, she couldn’t help wonder why they didn’t meet in Tahani’s house since it was so much bigger. But she didn’t ask.

“I’m glad you all could make it,” Tahani started, as if they had anything better to do.

“So, you know about Eleanor and Jason?” Chidi clarified.

“I do. And about myself. That’s three people, all in the same neighborhood, all here seemingly incorrectly. Do you think we were meant to be in The Bad Place?”

“I guess those are the only two options, right?” Eleanor asked.

“According to Michael,” Chidi supplied.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit too much of a coincidence?” Tahani continued conspiratorially.

“What are you saying?” Chidi scrunch his eyebrows up, flustered.

“I’m saying…” Tahani trailed off, eyes flicking around the room as if there were surveillance devices or watchful eyes they needed to be wary of, “What if we’re not _really_ in The Good Place?”

Jason, of all people, let out a loud gasp. “What does that mean?” he asked in his low voice.

“You know,” Chidi spoke up, “I think you might be onto something. Does anything about this place really seem like paradise?”

“We can get drunk and there are no hangovers.” Eleanor supplied.

“True,” Chidi conceded, “but what about the fact that I can still get stomach aches? Or what about how awkward the froyo places are? Or what about the giant, gaping hole in the center of town?”

“All good points,” Eleanor conceded. “But realistically what does this mean?”

“It means it doesn’t matter if you take ethics lessons or not,” Chidi said. “We’re still in The Bad Place.” He stopped, thinking for a second. “Wait.”

“Wait what?” Jason asked.

“I think I’ve read something about this before.”

Eleanor rolled her eyes. “Of course you have.”

“What if we’re all here to torture each other for eternity. What if that’s the punishment?”

“I don’t feel tortured by you lot at all,” Tahani admitted, looking at Eleanor meaningfully. Despite this new twist, Eleanor couldn’t forget the discussion they’d had on the bridge.

“Well, maybe that was the plan,” Chidi shrugged.

“Does this mean I can go back to my Xbox?” Jason interrupted.

Chidi sighed but nodded. The three of them watched as he walked out.

“I just don’t get the appeal of video games. Even in the afterlife, it seems like he’s wasting his life away on that thing,” Chidi griped.

“I always hated boyfriends who were too obsessed with their video games to have sex with me,” Eleanor admitted, unsure of what to think about the twin gazes that landed on her at that comment. “Sorry, was that too much info?”

Tahani shrugged. “You’ll be happy to know I don’t play any video games.”

Eleanor felt her face flush, catching Tahani’s meaning very clearly.

“Neither do I,” Chidi squeaked.

“So,” Eleanor said, flopping down onto her couch, “that means none of us are actually soulmates right?”

Tahani and Chidi followed suit, sitting on either side of her.

“I guess that’s what it means,” Chidi confirmed.

“Does that mean you two don’t want to kiss me?” she asked.

“It most certainly does not mean that,” Tahani protested haughtily.

“What about you, teach?” Eleanor directed to Chidi.

“No, I definitely want to kiss you. Both of you.”

“Then it’s settled,” Eleanor said, “we’ll make our own soulmates and kiss whoever we want.”  



End file.
